(28-08-2016 01:33 AM)Rufus Wrote: This discussion seems a confusion between science as a method, the laws of physics and the object of interest for science.

As so often in forum discussions contributors often stretch the subject away from the OP's original intention.

In my mind it was an investigation into ways to explaining, to theists and science-phobes, that science is unavoidable, even if you know nothing about how it works.

I have just thought thought that "science" is not quite the right term, or is incomplete in this concept. We attempt to label the mechanics of the Universe, usually inadequately because no language or philosophy can actually fully, accurately describe it - short of some huge dissertation, if then.

We can only hang labels we understand. "Science" is really a methodology and not a field but for convenience sake it has been bent to also mean anything related to or using that methodology.

To me the border is support for a hypothesis. Hard sciences such as physics and chemistry can have very robust, repeatable results for all to see if they wish. Soft sciences such as psychology can have repeatable results but the evidence may be more fuzzy. Imagination has no repeatable support for it. Just my $0.02

"If we are honest—and scientists have to be—we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality.
The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination."
- Paul Dirac

(28-08-2016 07:44 AM)The Organic Chemist Wrote: To me the border is support for a hypothesis. Hard sciences such as physics and chemistry can have very robust, repeatable results for all to see if they wish. Soft sciences such as psychology can have repeatable results but the evidence may be more fuzzy. Imagination has no repeatable support for it. Just my $0.02

Yes,,get that point using the straight definition of science as a methodology. To reiterate my point: you can break, analyse, the action of hammering a nail into a piece of word into a dozen or more processes - kinetic energy, tribology, all the biological processes that enable your muscles, hand/eye coordination and other electrochemical mental/physical processes, metallurgy, the chemistry of the grip on the hammer if plastic, the processes involved in growing the tree and making the manufactured objects (from mining the metals andvextracting the oil upward) etc etc etc

You cannot avoid making use of scientific principles in everyday life - unless you are that walled up, naked, filthy, diseased, starving (and possibly shit-eating and piss-drinking insane) anchorite!

Note: the "What isn't" bit was like "I like ice-cream"/"Who doesn't?" type statement/response. Suggests everything relates to science in some way, unless it is pure woo.

[Hey! Gone back to using a stylus on this tablet and fewer bloody typos! ]

People (and other animals) inadvertently use the scientific method all the time (observe, test, repeat, conclude) and a lot do it incorrectly (a lot also skip the test and repeat parts before drawing conclusions).

So to me, science is an active process. It starts when someone is intentionally utilizing the scientific method to draw inferences about their observations and to test hypotheses and submit their work to other experts/scientists for feedback and criticism.

Replicating science experiments at home isn't really someone being a scientist or doing science. They are intended to teach specific lessons about an experiment or as an introduction to how to utilize the scientific method.

I think it is best to have a fairly restrictive definition of science. Otherwise you have all sorts of woo that could list itself as science.

(29-08-2016 09:49 AM)TheBeardedDude Wrote: People (and other animals) inadvertently use the scientific method all the time (observe, test, repeat, conclude) and a lot do it incorrectly (a lot also skip the test and repeat parts before drawing conclusions).

So to me, science is an active process. It starts when someone is intentionally utilizing the scientific method to draw inferences about their observations and to test hypotheses and submit their work to other experts/scientists for feedback and criticism.

Replicating science experiments at home isn't really someone being a scientist or doing science. They are intended to teach specific lessons about an experiment or as an introduction to how to utilize the scientific method.

I think it is best to have a fairly restrictive definition of science. Otherwise you have all sorts of woo that could list itself as science.

Science for me is about understanding nature. About understanding that there is no god and no afterlife because there is no evidence for it therefore it's impossible. All science works on this understanding and all science is love.

(13-09-2016 09:30 AM)ScientificTruth321 Wrote: Science for me is about understanding nature. About understanding that there is no god and no afterlife because there is no evidence for it therefore it's impossible. All science works on this understanding and all science is love.

I don't think all science works just to prove there is no god!

Science is strictly a method a mode of thinking and foing, as shown in the diagram above. Science has nothing to do with belief or unbelief in the supernatural. Nothing to do with belief of any kind.